From "Obligatory Militarism" to "Contractual Militarism" \-\- Competing Models of Citizenship

Since the 1973 War, the secular Ashkenazi middle-class groups, which traditionally had constituted the military's "backbone", have displayed a lack of enthusiasm to continue to bear the military burden, a phenomenon that was publicly portrayed as a "motivation crisis." We conceptualize this process as a shift from a "subjected militarism" that perceived military service as an unconditioned, mandatory national duty to a "contractual militarism," according to which military service is stipulated by the fulfillment of the individual's ambitions and interests, although it remained a formal obligation. Two sites of socializations—school memorial ceremonies and preparation for the military service—serve as mediating mechanisms between the structural, social change and the social agency. Both have been utilized by the dominant groups to re-shape the canon, military ethos in a manner that redefines their relations vis-à-vis the military in contractual terms.